Pathway lays out plans to give a hand up, not a handout

But on the coldest night of the year so far, many of Oakland County's most concerned citizens met at St. John Fisher Chapel in Auburn Hills to challenge that assumption and band together to help others.

It was the beginning of a new initiative in Oakland County, called Pathway. It's a new enterprise looking to pool the resources of the county's most effective nonprofit groups and pursue the best means to combat poverty in the area.

"We want to make sure that the time and money that people put in these groups will make a real difference; that these kids and these families are really moving forward," said Luz Telleria, director of Hispanic Outreach Services, one of the nonprofits forming the core of Pathway.

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Pathway's role is to connect people who provide services with those who need them, and connect those who want to help with places where they can. The key word of Pathway is sustainability -- not just providing emergency services such as shelters and food donations, but bringing people out of poverty and helping set them up to stay that way.

"Despite all the time, effort, and money we (as a community) put into fighting poverty often we only move them from poverty to 'OK for now,'" said Susan Masiak, leader of the Pathway Planning Committee and organizer of the event. "The percentage of Michigan families under the poverty line has doubled since 2000. Many of them will keep moving back and forth between poverty and that being 'OK for now' situation."

Elizabeth Kelly, a member of the Pathway Planning Board, said, "I work at the Hope Warming Shelter in Pontiac. No matter how many people we get housed, there's more people there to take their place, so one of the questions Pathway is trying to answer is how do we break that cycle."

Among the obstacles the nonprofits have to contend with is the view that many affluent areas of Oakland County don't have any low-income residents.

"Poverty can be invisible until that person loses their home, and by then the problem is so much bigger and harder to solve," Masiak said.

The meeting included a call for volunteers. Each group said what's needed is time, talent and treasure, so people can help in a variety of ways. They can volunteer as mentors for kids in Hispanic Outreach or for those struggling or feeling alone via Lighthouse of Oakland County; they can do clerical work or provide financial expertise for Rochester Area Neighborhood House; or even donate a few bucks to KIVA Detroit for small-business loans to help those trying to revitalize the local economy get off the ground.

Pathway has a clear set of goals: Reach a thousand volunteers within two years -- it now has 200 -- make sure any programs the participating nonprofits institute has at least an 80 percent success rate and, of course, help as many people out of poverty as possible.

While those at the meeting were universally supportive of Pathway, with more than 50,000 households in Oakland County below the poverty line, some worried whether this effort would be enough.

"I wonder with the numbers of those in poverty if nonprofit groups will be able to do the job and fix these problems," said Eugenia Bajorek, who attended the meeting. "I think it will take government programs and a bigger role from the business community to provide jobs to handle an issue this size."

Linda Riggs, executive director of Rochester Area Neighborhood House responded.

"You have to start somewhere," she said. "The way that we try to help people and the way that Pathway is designed is to encourage growth. That means more families helped out of poverty than before."

Masiak went on to say that one of Pathways long-term goals is to grow large enough to begin affecting policy.

"In two years or three years we can go to policymakers and funders and talk to them about changes in how we find solutions to poverty. The way things are done in this culture makes it very hard to get out of poverty."

Masiak concluded the evening by quoting some timely words of Martin Luther King Jr.

"Martin Luther King once talked about the parable of the good Samaritan, saying that we should aim not just to help the man who was robbed, beaten and left for dead, but to help make the road safer. That's a good way of thinking about how Pathway is trying to help the area, by making the road safer."

EDITOR'S NOTE: The percentage for the success rate has been corrected to say 80 percent.

Fore more information, email Susan Masiak at stmasiak@hotmail.com or call St. John Fisher Chapel at 248-373-6457.